question to ponder

[Guest rich mc]

i drive over the fox river almost every day areas that are usually totally covered with water now have weeds 2-3ft high. question is , once rivers get fully watered will these areas be the place to fish and how would you ? these weeds are not the usual river weeds and the fish probably have never swam in weeds therebefore. rich mc

[Mike G]

I don't know if the fish can tell Goldenrods from Milfoil. Weeds is weeds. Since they provide nutrients and cover for food, the bass will move in. This is one more reason to have weedless lures and flies in your bag of tricks,.

[John Gillio]

I agree with Mike. Bait will be in those weeds, so the bass will too.

[jude]

My guess is, maybe for a day or two the weeds will hold baitfish. But once they're under water, they will die. Rotting vegetation will decrease the oxygen of the surrounding water, then no more fish. I ain't a syantist. Where's Tim Smith when you need him?

[Eric]

Late spring floods on the Fox often push fish up into shoreline vegetation where they stay and feed. Fishing can by fantastic around these areas. Bass will use whatever they can for cover and ambush points.

 

I'm wondering if "low" is our new "normal." How long will it take our rivers to consistently flow at what we consider to be 'typical' rates? The Fox runs in the 750 - 900 CFS range this time of year but even with the last rainfall it's only at 350 CFS and falling. It rises and falls very quickly. Around 250 CFS has been "typical" this summer. We've lost so much volume we're really going to have to get a deluge north of us for it to flow at higher rates consistently and for a long period of time. It's an interesting predicament we're in. I suppose it may take a year or more for our river levels to consistently flow at the old waterlines they've scarred.

 

Checkout the flow rates from May 1 to date. You can see the spikes as rain events but aside from early May deluge, it drops as quickly as it rises. At least we seem to be trending upwards!

 

 

[ronk]

Based on recent trends we may be in for 2 or 3 more yrs of below normal rainfall.Prior to the mid summer 2007 I seem to recall that we had dry conditions for a cupl or more yrs followed by much wetter than normal thru mid 2011. Once those 2007 big rains came the rivers quickly shot up & farm fields were underwater for much of the rest of that year.The reason the Fox didn't rise much is the northern suburbs along it didn't get as much rain as further south. The Kank was affected even less there being little rain in that river's basin. Same thing with the Kish. Where it did rain harder the Dupe shot up from around 200 - 2000 cfs.